


Dinner Conversation, a.k.a. Knock Knock Cutaway

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Loss of Memory, Love, Some angst, doctor who series 10 fix-it, roads not travelled, spoilers for Doctor Who Series 9, spoilers for episode s10e04: Knock Knock, spoilers for episode s10e06: Extremis, unbroadcast scenes, what might have been, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:18:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11444505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: Immediately after the events of "Knock Knock", the Twelfth Doctor and Missy share Mexican takeaway. The meal turns sour when Missy brings up a forbidden topic: the companion he no longer remembers.





	Dinner Conversation, a.k.a. Knock Knock Cutaway

**Author's Note:**

> The following story is meant to be read after the Series 10 episode "Knock Knock". 
> 
> One of the biggest frustrations I had with Series 10 was the fact that when Missy was reintroduced (this should not be a spoiler to folks who haven't seen the season yet as her return was widely advertised by the BBC) they didn't see fit to have her ask about Clara, even though the fact she brought the Doctor and Clara together was a major part of her character arc. And without spoilers, the way Missy's story plays out through Series 10, it actually makes less sense for Clara not to have been at least acknowledged by her.
> 
> This story is called a Cutaway because it takes place immediately after the end of Knock Knock. It is my attempt at chronicling a conversation I feel the Doctor and Missy must have had at some point.
> 
> EDIT: This story got more than 300 hits in the first 24 hours since it was uploaded, which is a new record for me (I have some stories that have been up a year that haven't scored that many hits). Thanks to everyone for their support!

“So I hear you have a new puppy now,” Missy said as she dug into the Mexican takeaway the Doctor had kindly brought her. The greasy container threatened to make a stain on the veneer of the piano upon which it rested, but she didn’t care. The Doctor had left her the piano to amuse herself in her prison, but it was distractingly out of tune. Who cared if Beethoven had composed his Fifth on it? Kill it with fire, or burritos, as far as she was concerned.

The Doctor forked some more rice into his mouth and shrugged. “ _Hmmmh?_ ” he replied. Which is Time Lord-with-rice-in-his-mouth for, “What are you going on about now, Missy?”

“I mean John, Paul, George, Ringo, whatever the hell her name is.”

“You mean Bill.”

“That’s the one. She’s pretty. I hope you’re able to hold onto this one longer than the last one. You know …” Missy leaned forward towards the barrier field, “… _Cla-ra_.” Then she put on a faux-shocked expression and went full Scottish. “Oooo, deed-ja hear tha’?” she cried out. “Missy went and said the C-word.”

The Doctor stopped chewing and looked back at Missy with darkness that legitimately ran a chill down her spine. “I thought we’d agreed-”

“-never to discuss you-know-who. Yes, yes. But that was back when all you had was Baldy as a playmate, and each night you’d be holed up in your office playing that damn song over and over on your guitar, or painting or reading Jane Austen novels until your eyes crossed.”

“How did you…”

“Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor … I might be locked up in here, but I am still a screaming genius. You could ask how I found out, but to borrow a phrase, I’m Missy—or the Master, if you prefer—just accept it.”

“Bill is different from Clara. She won’t make the same mistakes,” the Doctor said, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth. If for no other reason than it hardly inspired Missy to drop the conversation.

“She won’t fall in love with you, in other words.”

“Missy, enough.”

“Listen, Doctor, I just played matchmaker for you and Clara ‘I can’t find the Internet’ Oswald. I never put a gun to your head to make you fall for her, River Song be damned. That, my dear, was all on you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Doctor growled. “Clara and I travelled for a while. We were friends. And then she died. There was nothing I could have done. Sad, but it happens.” 

Missy took a bite of her burrito. “So, how often did you rehearse that line before you began to believe it?”

Suddenly off his meal, the Doctor tossed his container onto a table and stood up. “Enough, Missy. What the hell do you want me to say?”

“How about ‘anything?’” Missy replied. “The last time I saw you two together, you were joined at the hip. And when the Daleks told me you’d retired into domestic bliss, I actually thought they were referring to you and Clara, and I still did when you and I made our little arrangement before my ‘execution.’ I have to admit that wasn’t quite the outcome I had in mind, but I thought it had put you off the market for a while. About twenty-four years, so I’m told. Just turns out it was with the wrong woman because the First Law of Time means nothing to you.”

“Get to the point, Missy,” the Doctor said.

“So, what happened? Cards on the table, Doctor. You and Clara were set to become the Hybrid, I know you figured that out. I chose wisely and I knew that someday either you’d nearly bite the biscuit or she would and then one of you would rain hell to save the other and I’d pick up the pieces after. I even made sure to get the boyfriend out of the way _and_ I arranged for you and Clara to get exposed to those yucky dream crabs when the two of you refused to play nice and parted company prematurely. I mean, seriously: lying to one another, thinking you would both be happier alone? What were you smoking? So when I’d eventually heard you both turned up on Gally billions of years from now, I thought it was perfect. And then it seemed to go all pear-shaped. So, the Mistress of all time and space asks again: what happened?”

“She died.”

“Yes, I know,” Missy looked legitimately sad. “And I also know you spent billions of years in your confession dial scheming to undo that inconvenience. My little birds tell me-” 

“-What ‘little birds?’” the Doctor interrupted.

“Shush, Mommy is talking. My little birds tell me Clara has been gallivanting around the cosmos with that brat immortal I tried to kill off back in 1453, acting all Doctor two-point-oh, so I think you succeeded. But you’ve never told me why you don’t properly remember her. Clara and I exchanged death threats the way lovers exchange Valentine cards and we shared a rather intimate vortex manipulator ride ... and I know she literally loved you more than life itself; trust me, I don’t think she’s the type to be forgotten unless you did something really stupid.”

“Missy, it doesn’t matter how it happened. The truth is I don’t remember Clara. Mostly. All I know of her is what I’ve been able to piece together and from talking to people like Kate Stewart at UNIT and, uh, someone I met in a diner once.” The Doctor had pulled back; some information he didn’t want Missy to know about. “But I neuroblocked that part of my memory for a reason: to protect her. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“But you were in love with her. Why else would you risk a neuroblock?” Missy could not hide the look of being ever-so-slightly impressed from her face.

“I said I don’t remember. Not that part, anyway. And it’s probably better that way.”

“Why?”

“You know me well enough to know that if I still remembered any sort of feelings like that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” The Doctor headed toward the exit. “Enjoy the rest of your meal. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Doctor,” Missy called after him, the plea in her tone making him stop. “I’m sorry for upsetting you. I am trying hard to feel empathy and I honestly can’t imagine what it must have been like for you. Or what it feels like now.”

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” the Doctor said.

“And how many times did you have to rehearse _that_ line? What I’m trying to say, Doctor, is I miss Clara, too. And I’m sorry she’s sort-of dead now. The two of you, together … there were times where I wish we’d had that sort of chemistry when we were young. The two of you were good together.”

“Were we? Well, I guess I’m just going to have to take your word for it,” the Doctor said quietly as he exited the chamber.

“Let me out of here and I’ll help you find her.”

The Doctor turned back from the doorway and looked at Missy intently. Time stood still as a thousand calculations went through his mind. If anyone could find her, it was Missy. The Doctor himself had tried for years to find Clara after meeting her fleetingly at the diner that disguised her own stolen TARDIS. He’d eventually given up and his own TARDIS had reunited him with River. 

Between seeing River to her own fate and taking care of Missy for a half-century, and taking on his first bona fide job in millennia in the process, there had been no more opportunities to search for Clara. He eventually chalked it up to what might have been. Maybe Clara did not want to be found. She had her own life, surely. Maybe she had settled down with Ashildr or found another ... what was his name again? The neuroblock made the face fuzzy, but the Doctor was able to extract the name Danny.

Still, Missy had been right. Late, sleepless nights were often spent playing the song he’d composed and named after Clara, and which Clara herself had suggested might have represented his lost memories. Of what she’d told him in the Cloisters so long ago. He’d tried to put her and the song out of his mind, even going so far as to rename the song “I Forget,” but it was no use. Not only was that song permanently stuck in his head (even the term “ear worm” for some reason felt familiar and comfortable when his mind invoked it), it even played a part in his decision to not wipe Bill’s memory and let her travel with him.

When he wasn’t playing music, he was reading and re-reading Jane Austen. One of the few fragments of actual Clara memories he possessed was that she and Austen had become close one summer break when he had taken Clara to visit the author to resolve an argument the two had been engaged in since the time when he had moonlighted as a caretaker at Coal Hill School during the Scovox Blitzer incident. Afterwards, Jane had promised to incorporate the two of them into one of her stories. With a university library at his disposal and plenty of time to kill being de facto marooned on 20th- and 21st-century Earth, he’d poured through Austen’s works, trying to find clues. He’d found a few promising signs, such as Lydia from _Pride and Prejudice_ sparking a bit of deja vu, but otherwise there was nothing. And his oath prevented him from just nipping back to ask Jane directly, though with Bill by his side now, that might someday be possible.

Missy was also right that he didn’t believe that Clara was ever “just a friend.” She wasn’t like the others. They all had their gifts, and were all fantastic. But Clara … even with his memory of her distorted, he knew she was … unique.

And now he had Missy, probably the only Time Lord who wasn’t after the Doctor’s head for what he did with Clara on Gallifrey, offering to reunite him with her. Maybe having Clara in front of him again—and this time knowing who she was—might restore his memory. They’d have to run faster and further than ever before because of it … but wasn’t that what had given them so much joy when they were together? 

Odd that he’d remember that. He remembered the joy. But when he tried to dig deeper, he couldn’t feel anything … but he knew he should.

The Doctor took a deep breath. No. It’s not meant to be. He had to move on, just as he knew Clara had moved on. 

Someday his memories might return. But, for now, he had to focus on keeping his oath, and Bill of course was now a part of his life, reminding him so much of his granddaughter. No, Doctor. Leave the past alone.

For now.

“Well, Doctor, what do you say?” Missy asked.

The Doctor smiled sadly. “Good night, Missy.” He closed the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> The renaming of Clara's song is taken from a deleted scene from "The Pilot". 
> 
> Jenna Coleman played Lydia in a TV adaptation of Death Comes to Pemberley, a sequel to Pride and Predjudice. I couldn't resist the in-joke.
> 
> (Oh, and by the way - I'm half Scottish so I can get away with poking a wee bit of fun at the accent since I had an aunt who talked just like that.)
> 
>  
> 
> _"Everything has its time, and everything ends." - Sarah Jane Smith_


End file.
